Thursday, February 28, 2008

Alfred Hitchcock presents...

This may seem like a scene from an Alfred Hitchcock movie, but it’s not!

Our place is close to a big beautiful basilica. It is also close to a cemetery. It is close to a pharmacy and grocery store and public transit as well, but the first two have always played a role in horror movies, so I’ll stick with them.

A couple of weeks ago, on our way out on a Friday night, around 7pm, something caught my attention. A group of crows sitting on a couple of trees in front of our building. As I looked up, I saw hundreds of them flying to join the sitting ones, all cawing. They all sat on branches of three or four trees, covering the bare trees in black. In about 15 minutes, those four trees were covered in black crows, all cawing. We came back pretty late, maybe around 2 am, and they were still there. Quite, motionless, hundreds and hundreds of them, on the branches of the same four trees, not any other one…and not even the slightest sound.
The next morning, they were all gone.

On Saturday night, around 9 pm, I remembered the crows, and out of intense curiosity, went to the building entrance to check outside again. There they were. All whole bunch of them, sitting quietly and motionless, on the same four trees, covering their branches in black.
The same on Sunday night…and I began to freak out!

At first I thought may be there was a dead animal or some kind of prey that had attracted them. But they were not moving or fighting or flying. They just came there, from all over the place, by the sunset. Sat there, covering the branches, and left before sunrise. They didn’t choose any other tree than the same four trees, and all night, they were quite.

That was it! It was the same for three nights, and on Monday night, everything went back to normal. No crows, no cawing, only the bare branches frozen or covered in snow.
It remained a mystery for me. Why they came there for three nights and then left? I don’t know if I can ever find the answer.

Were they auditioning for the new version of “The Birds”????

1 comment:

Tameshk said...

Dearest Nava

Wow! I like your ending! Although The Birds (1963) is based on a book by Daphne Du Maurier Hitchcock was motivated by a News Report from Santa Cruz; about birds' strange and awkward behavior! So you may very well be right about the fact that an audition was going on for The Birds II.

Crows are not scary to me. I am rather fond of them, Crows. I think it is mostly because of Samad Behrangi's story, Oldooz and Crows. Some how through his stories I learned to like and respect commonly-undesirable creatures and things. And believe me my fondness for unpopular animals and things does not stop at these birds ;D